20 is our number, with one exception…

[aphilso1]

…and that exception is that we CAN’T lose at home to Northwestern.  Like many of you, I’ve scoured the internet and mentally compiled a list of our relative strengths and weaknesses.  It seems like most pundits see 4 factors potentially working against us:

1. Not enough total wins

2. Not enough wins away from Lincoln

3. Too many losses to 100+ RPI teams, when compared to our number of wins against top 50 teams.

4. RPI Ranking – really more of a neutral than a weakness, but this has the potential to become a weakness

Thankfully, we’re competing against other bubble teams, so it’s not like we need to shore up all of these issues to get into the field.  Every bubble team has its problems.  Our remaining contests provide the following potential impacts to our resume, relative to the 4 weaknesses above.

 

The road games (Illinois & Indiana)-- A win in either game gives us more total wins, more road wins, and a higher RPI ranking, since road wins enhance RPI a lot more than home wins.  A loss hurts in weakness #3, as that would add another loss to a team potentially finishing outside of the top 100.

Northwestern game— A win only helps total wins, and none of our other resume deficiencies.  A loss cripples our RPI, and makes our top 50 wins vs. non-top 100 losses balance even worse.

Wisconsin game—A win gives us another total win and top 50 win.  Bump in RPI would be less pronounced, since it’s at home.  No effect on wins away from home.  A loss would hurt RPI, just like any home loss does; however, this RPI drop will be marginally offset by the SOS factor.

Conference Tourney games-- See effects for the road games.  The main difference is that a win is worth only 1.0 on a neutral court vs. 1.4 on the road, so positive effect on our RPI will be negligible.

 

For every game except Northwestern, there’s a chance to shore up our resume with a win or injure it with a loss.  To me, that means none of those games is a true “must win,” as it’s really just a matter of getting enough total wins from the bunch.  And to get to 20 wins, we would automatically shrink some of our weaknesses along the way.  So to me it doesn’t matter if we miss out on that top 25 win opportunity against Wiscy, if in exchange we pick up a road win at Indiana (or vice versa).  Now the one glaring exception in this is the Northwestern game.  It’s a must win.  If we lose to Northwestern, we’ve now got another bad loss on the resume, this time at home, that IMO would move our magic number up an extra game to 21.  Or in other words, a loss that bad at home at the end of the year would require two positives to offset it (like a road win and top 25 win).  Now obviously how other bubble teams finish effects our odds, as does teams like Wichita State taking care of business to keep their conference a one-bid league.  But by and large, if we win 20 games and Northwestern is one of them, then we’re dancing.  So let’s beat those Cats!  And everybody else!

[Cookie Belcher]

If we win 20 games but lost to Northwestern, I have to think we would still be in. That means two more road wins (shores up that column) and a huge home win vs Wisconsin.

Yes, northwestern is the worst possible loss of our remaining games, but then that means we got the three best wins of the remaining games. I'd say it balances out.

[HuskerFever]

So we can lose our next 4 games and just win 4 games in the Big Ten tournament?

[Section_316]

I agree with Cookie. If we win out regular season, sans the Northwestern game (we trip up at home), we would enter the B1G 19-12 (11-7) and in almost every bracketoligists NCAA tournament. We win round 1 there to get to 20, we are dancing, no doubt in my mind. 

[hhcmatt]

But by and large, if we win 20 games and Northwestern is one of them, then we’re dancing.  So let’s beat those Cats!  And everybody else!

 

Agree big time.  Is it possible to get in with 19? Yes though we'd have to have a lot of other things go right.

It's hard to see this team with it's resume not doing it with 20.

[lanigan123]

In regular season we need 19. I would feel very confident. A good showing in Indy helps seeding.

[Donkey]

I have been saying all along we need to win out just to be on the bubble. Losses to Purdue, Penn State and UAB are just too damaging combined with 10 losses. Also, give us another loss in the BIG tourney unless we somehow win the whole thing. We lose a close one to an equally hot Wisconsin team at home. The bubble will not have popped but a first round BIG tourney loss will leave us at 19-12 and in the NIT.

[HuskerFever]

Can we just get 20 wins already? I'm ready for "March" talk.